


In the end, we are all alone

by fallingsuns



Series: In the aftermath we were nothing [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flashback, past major character death, post adamant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:28:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4148325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingsuns/pseuds/fallingsuns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "There's no end to being a hero, even if you want too". Tells the tale of Varric's reaction to Hawke's impromptu and second hand confession. Varric's reaction, and the memories it reveals, shows how exactly Hawke and Varric's friendship came to be so much more.</p><p>When she doesn't step out of Rift there are several thoughts that Varric has. And yet, once Lavellan talks to him, he has only one. Forgetting everything she told him - about Hawke, about him. And so he turns to the one person who demanded he tell her Hawke's story, the one who inadvertently demanded to hear his story. And so he does the one thing that Varric Tethras does the best - he tells a story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the end, we are all alone

**Author's Note:**

> Read and review :)

There's a loud shriek, a high pitched tone that sends everyone in the courtyard to their knees. The Rift in the center of the courtyard begins to twist, push against the very air. Then, just as suddenly as it begins, the noise ends. And the Rift goes quiet. An uneasy silence settles across the courtyard and seconds tick by as if they were hours.

Suddenly, the Rift lets out one last angry yowl, the gaping hole into the Fade gasping for its last breath. And then, in a way so similar and yet so profoundly different from Haven, the Inquisitor steps out of the Rift and into the crowd.

She's bathed in green, the once sickly hue now emerald against her skin. _The Herald_ , they whisper, _The Inquisitor, **Our** Inquisitor_.

She stands tall against the ruins of Adamant, against the ruin of the Wardens. She smiles at them, at the lucky few who do not realize how close they were to having their nightmares become reality. It is then that he notices the red tint of her eyes, how she looks as if moments before this one she was holding back tears until they became too much for her to handle.

Varric can tell the moment she spots him in the crowd, sees her looking for others, for Cassandra and Dorian. Her eyes flash towards him, eyeing him, making sure he's not hurt. They make eye contact, and her eyes widen a fraction before darting downwards in a move that reeks of guilt. He moves forward, to ask her what, he's not sure. He's suddenly not sure of anything.

She twists her fingers in the green skirt of her armor, squeezes her eyes shut. A moment drags out before she visibly boosts herself up, straightens her shoulders and raises her head. A feeling of dread shoots through him when he notices the tears building up behind her eyes, the way she's rapidly blinking.

"Varric..." His name sounds wrong, like an apology and death sentence all wrapped into one. "I - I.....By the - no. Just, no."

She opens her mouth to try again, her hand twisting into the cloth again. She looks small, conflicted, confused. She looks wrong. Varric steps forward to comfort her, to place a hand on her elbow, to do something, anything, to make that look on her face go away.

"No. No. Varric. There's....there's something you need to know." She steps away from him, her hands stretching the green cloth. She finally looks up, her bright green eyes shiny and wet.

Then, it hits him. He scans the area, searching for the dark red hair that too often haunted his dreams. Varric feels bile rising in the back of his throat as he comes up empty, the courtyard free of Hawke's signature blood red hair.

"Where's....where's Hawke?" He braces himself for the inevitable, for the answer he knows is coming. Lavellan flinches at his words, seems to curl inside herself.

"Hawke....gave her life for us. For the Inquisition." She pauses, inhales, and twists her hand further into her robe. "Not because it was her duty, but because it was the right thing to do. Because she believed in us, in what we stand for and what we are doing!"

The world seems to stop when the Inquisitor stops talking. Varric stumbles backwards, his vision starting to blur. He needs to leave, to get some air, some space. He turns to slip away into the crowd, Bianca heavy on his shoulders.

"Wait! Varric....I need to talk to you!" Lavellan grabs his shoulder, her voice a desperate whisper in his ear. "Please, it's about Hawke, she told me that she loves you, that -"

He jerks away, pulling his shoulder free from her grasp. He turns around, walks into the crowd. Disappears as one amongst the many.  He walks down the stairs, through the skeleton of the ancient fortress. He slips pasts the corpses and the grieving soldiers. He escapes out the splintered gate into the Western Approach. The sand beneath his feet is blackened and cold and it stains the light brown leather of his boots. The trebuchets are scattered around the ruined walls, their operators long abandoned them to congregate in the courtyard.

Abandoned. Like Hawke abandoned him when she snuck off Isabela's boat that night. No. No. He won't think about that night right now. Won't think about Hawke and what she meant to him. What she supposedly confessed to Lavellan. Just no. He spends the entire trip back to Skyhold repeating it over and over again, his mind resolutely blank.

The entire keep is somber, the shadows stretching far across the courtyard. Varric excuses himself quickly, brushes off the gruff efforts of sympathy from Cassandra and the drinks from Dorian. He can feel Lavellan's eyes on him, could feel her eyes on him the whole ride back. He still doesn't look up.

The door to the tavern creaks when Varric pushes it open, the noise lost in the wave of music. He settles down in a corner far, far away from the Chargers and the Iron Bull. It's nothing personal, but Varric just needs to be alone with his thoughts. The Tavern is loud with the noise of men and women hyped up on adrenaline, victory and the sheer happiness that victories such as this one bring. He melts into his seat as the bartender passes him a pint of ale and he chugs it down, relishing in the numbing burn.

A few drinks in and Varric feels like he's flying. The world is at a lovely tilt, with just the right amount of fuzz on the edges. The noise in the Tavern has intensified, the giggling of happy and silly men breaking through the music. The corner that Varric's settled in is warm and quiet and his brain is delightful empty. But then he hears the door creak open, and the dainty figure of the Inquisitor slips into view. She spots him almost instantly and walks towards him, nervously pulling her traditional blue cloak tighter and tighter around her shoulders.

"Nope. Just....nope." Varric holds his hand up and is momentarily distracted by the way his hand is blurring into the background of the Tavern. "I....don't want to hear it. No, no, it's not that -"

 "Varric she said that she loved you." Lavellan leans forward and covers his hands with her own small, slender ones.  "And that it was never wrong and she was so, so sorry that she was never brave enough to tell you."

 "Yeah? So am I." Varric scoffs, throwing back another drink. The once pleasant burn is now overwhelming and sickly. "But it was her choice wasn't it?"

"Varric..." The woman sighs, a lock of her black hair falling into her face. "She was just scared. Scared of losing you, of losing the only real friend she felt like she had."

A bitter laugh erupts from his mouth, a sound as rough and pathetic as Bartrand use to sound when yelling at him. He shakes his head, another strangled laugh tearing from his mouth. Lavellan's eyes are wide, and she squeezes his hands tightly within her own.

"Don't you understand Waffles? Don't you understand just how fucking ironic your last sentence is?" He sighs, suddenly feeling depressingly sober. "She could never lose me. Ever. And the idea that she thought that she...that...well, it doesn't much matter anymore now does it? What was it she said - in the end we all stand alone with our actions? Yeah. Always a poet, my Hawke."

"Varric....let me help you to bed. You should rest." Lavellan gives a small smile, her eyes a little teary. "Come on, I think someone's had -."

"Nah, nah….I'm fine. Don't concern yourself with me, go visit Curly, I know he's dying to see you." He gives her a sleazy grin, desperate to brush the moment off. "I promise I will go to bed like a good little dwarf."

"Cullen can wait. I...you..." She sighs, rubs her thumb across the callouses of his hands. "Varric. You are important. You know that right?"

"Of course I do. I'm Varric Tethras, famous author and charming companion. Whatever would the Inquisition do without me?" He laughs, glad that Lavellan has decided to move past the seriousness of their conversation.

"No. That's not what I meant." Lavellan locks eyes with him, and he can see a steely resolve within them. She pauses, and then slowly, placing an emphasis on every word, continues. "You are important. To me. And to Hawke."

And suddenly, everything comes crashing down. The walls that he had built up so carefully over the years, the distance that he had put between himself and those memories. Those feelings. He never thought there'd be anyone else after Bianca, always thought she would be the One. Capital O, the forever in love and forever apart kind of shit he wrote in his books. He never thought he'd be wrong. Shit.

"I...." He croaks out, feeling the hot drip of tears on his cheeks. Not here. Not now. He goes to pull his hands away, suddenly wanting to be alone. But they go too easily. And so he pauses. And he looks, really looks, for the first time since she stepped out of the Rift, at Lavellan. There's kindness and compassion written on her face, but guilt too, ingrained deep into her vassaslin free face. He can see she blames herself. That revelation somehow just makes things worse. “I have to go."

"Varric, wait!" She stands up to stop – or is it to help him? He's not sure. He just runs.

 

 He doesn't get far. He's drunk, uncoordinated, broken and lost, with no idea of where he's going. He ends up outside the blacksmith's forge, curled up against the door like a child. He hopes Waffles won't come looking for him, hopes she understands that it isn't about her, but rather that her words were so right, so spot on. They were just from the wrong mouth. He groans, allowing his head to bang against the door, gives in and allows himself to give a solid punch. Thud.

"Varric? Is that you?" A heavily accented voice hits his ears. It takes the dwarf a few minutes to recognize it as one he's been hearing for the past six months.

"Seeker! How lovely it is to see you again!"

He laughs, a slightly bitter and jagged thing. He thinks back to all the times she questioned him, the times she doubted him. The times she demanded that he tell her the truth or "so help me dwarf I will hurt you!". And then, just like that, he's hit with an idea. It's crazy, and involves a part of him so personal he's never shared it. Yet, he can't let it go. He's suddenly griped with a desire to talk, to tell their story. And who better to tell it to then the woman who wanted to know it in the first place?

"You know....I ought to tell you a story." He looks up at her confused face, the lanterns illuminating her high cheek bones. "You always did say, tell me the truth dwarf. Tell me the truth… Well, listen up Seeker because I have a story for you. It's got everything, romance, tragedy, and all that fun stuff."

"Varric are you drunk?" Cassandra demands, her hands on her hips. "I do not have -"

"It all started with Fenris. Of course it did.  Stupid brooding prick. Damn. I'll have to write him a letter." He interrupts her as he goes to get up and open the door. "Come on Seeker, there are perfectly good chairs upstairs."

"Yes, yes, of course...." Cassandra's earlier objections fading at the mention of Fenris. Of Hawke. She allows him to settle down on the rug near the forge's fire, hovers awkwardly before sitting down herself.

"As I was saying...." The alcohol has made him brave and stupid, but luckily it hasn't affected his memory. "It all started with Fenris....when he was struggling with the whole mage thing...."

* * *

 

"I just don't get it Varric. I'm still me aren't I?" There's some sniffling and suddenly Varric's got a mouthful of red hair as Hawke flops her head down on the table. "I just don't un - un- understand!"

Hawke's a lightweight, it's why she usually just nursing one pint when they all hang out. Yet tonight she's keeping up with him, has downed a good three, and her fourth is already half empty. Varric's knocked out of his thoughts by a strange hiccupping noise - is she crying?

"Ah Hawke...." Varric sighs, pulling her shaking body close, tucks her head under his chin. "Come on, Broody's just cranky, I'm sure he didn't mean to -"

"Yes he did!" She’s shaking more, her hiccupping sobs growing louder, her voice growing more hysterical. She practically climbs into his lap, her entire body convulsing. "How - how could he just suggest that I - "

"Shhh, shhh..." He cuts her off, running his hand through her hair. As weird as it sounds in his head, this isn't unusual for them. She hasn't had a meltdown like this ever, but still. They're best friends, despite how much Varric hates that term. "I know...."

And he does. He knows that it's not just Fenris' angry comments that's bothering her, it’s just that they are the straw that broke the camel's back. That Anders, the Qunari, the Viscount, all of it is weighing on her mind.

"I just wanted him to be someplace safe, supportive...." She hiccups against his skin, her body still shaking despite everything. "Varric I just...."

She pulls her face away from his neck, pushes herself back onto his knees. Her face is blotchy, tear stained, and her hair hangs limply around her face. She still looks like his Hawke though. Her hand reaches down and grabs his own, much larger one, brings it up to her chest. Her thumb rubs circles against his callouses, the tears having stopped at least momentarily. To this day Varric's not sure who makes the first move, if it's him, drunk and desperate to keep her from crying again, or her, drunk and wanting to push the demons away. Whoever does make the first move, however, has it result in her pushed up against his chest, her knees bracketing his hips on the chair, her hands tilting his face upwards.

 She kisses like she cries; hard and tinged with unhinged desperation. Her tongue pushes it's way into his mouth, tangles with his before moving past it to trace every crevice, pulls a groan out of his throat. Not to be outdone, he reaches up, cupping her right breast with his hands, presses down on her nipple with his thumb. She gasps into his mouth, releases his jaw to tangle her hand in his chest hair. Somewhere in the back of his head there's a thought that's telling him to reconsider, that neither of them are in their right state of mind. He ignores it in favor of the one that's telling him that making out in a chair may be awesome right now, but doing it on a table will definitely be more awesome in the long run.

 She lets out a drunk giggle when he puts her on the table, pulls him close by his hair and bends her head down to kiss him. She tastes like the cheap ale he bought her and the strawberries she'd had during the trek down the beach. Her nails scrap down his chest as she pulls him ever closer.

They fuck on the table, her legs wrapped around his waist, her nipple in his mouth. She's letting out these moans that cause him to pound into her harder, faster, until she finally throws her head back against the table and screams, her hair a fiery red in the dim light of the Hanged Man.

It would've been better, he thinks, if she had tried to sneak away when it was all over. If she hadn't straddled his chest and placed a completely filthy kiss on his lips, a long slow drag of tongue against tongue, her hand tilting his cheek upward. She pulls back and gives him a small, sad smile. It would have been better, he thinks now, if they had never had the moment where they silently agreed not to talk about it.

"Ah Chuckles," Varric sighs, reaching up and detangling a knot in her hair. "Don't....don't be sad. Fenris will get his head out of his ass soon enough, I promise."

Hawke lets out a small laugh, shakes her head in disbelief. "Really? Somehow I doubt - ouch! Varric!"

Varric laughs, releasing her hair and giving her a small smile. "Go get dressed Hawke, I do believe we have a dwarf to find."

"Yeah. Yeah. You're right....meet me at the house in a few hours?" She gets off him and begins pulling her clothes on, shoots him a quick smile over her shoulder.

"Course, where else would I possibly be?" Varric shakes his head a little, a smile tugging at his mouth.

 

So off they went, tearing through the Wounded Coast in search of Jarvis and his crazy attempts at Qunari black powder. They spend weeks out on the Coast, tracking down every clue they can possibly find. Despite being so close to the city, the Coast is savage and unyielding. When the Tal Valshoth aren't flinging spears at them the winds are whipping at them from all sides.

Hawke's braid begins to resemble something close to a bird's nest while her eyes begin to take on the appearance of dulled jade. They search high and low for the stupid dwarf, climbing up rocky cliffs and clearing out cave after cave in search of his hideout. And they find nothing. They finally stop for more than a few hours when Isabela vocalizes what they were all thinking and announces she's not moving one step further Maker damn her so they better clear out that cave and start a fire.

It's a testament to how completely exhausted Hawke is that she doesn't do more than nod before proceeding to blast the unfortunate cave crawlers with a bolt of lightning. She falls asleep within moments of hitting the ground, and Varric feels a flash of irritation in his stomach when he sees the longing look on Fenris' face.

"You shouldn't look at her like that if you're going to continue to be an ass." Varric has his feet propped up against a rock, Bianca resting across his knees.

"I don't know what you're talking about dwarf." It's amazing how quickly the elf's expression changes, how he goes from longing to irritation in less than a minute.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. Either get with the program and apologize, or wipe that look off your face." His voice is as hard as stone, and he taps his fingers against Bianca to calm himself. "Hawke's one of my closest friends and I won't have you string her on. So, man up and tell her you don't give a nug's ass about whether or not she's a mage or...you get lost."

"Varric, it's not that simple....you wouldn't -"

"Actually…it is." And with that, he gets up to go on watch.

 

In the end, they find Jarvis. He spouts some bullshit that pretty much amounts to the fact that they have to walk back to the Arishok empty handed. Aveline meets them at the gate to the Qunari compound, and Hawke sends Fenris home, ignoring the way he flinches when she does.

The Arishok is, understandable, angry. He rants and raves at them while Hawke simply looks pale and tired under the moonlight. They leave the compound feeling more like a failure than when they went in, and it doesn't help that Isabela, who had darted off when they left, suddenly reappears. In response, Hawke just lets out a sad laugh, turns down Isabela's offer of drinks at the Hanged Man and announces she's going home for the evening. They all disperse after that, Varric and Isabella head down to the bar while Aveline goes home to Donnic.

The two of them are deep in their drinks, deep in that really great moment where anything and everything seems like a great idea, when Hawke shows up. He'd gone up to his room to look for his personal bottle of Antivan ale, the kind of stuff he only brought out when he was already half way to being completely gone. She was sitting on his table, barefoot and in a short maroon robe. It's wrapped haphazardly around her, her left shoulder exposed to the night air while her feet have the dust of Lowtown on them, dark clumps clinging to her heels from where she's ran through the puddles.

Yet it's her hair that makes him take pause. It's twisted into loose knots, slightly frizzled despite her attempts to put it in a bun. It's a hairstyle that Varric remembers all too well, remembers pulling the knot free while she stared down at him.

"Well, shit. What did he -" He's cut off by the frantic shaking of her head, the way her hands shake ever so slightly as she wraps them tighter and tighter around her shoulders. He sighs.

"Ah hell Hawke." Shaking his head, he curses Fenris under his breath. "I'll be right back....I just need to, ah, it doesn't matter."

 He barely stumbles down the stairs, a stark contrast to the blurred buzz he'd been sporting mere moments before. He gives Isabela a shitty excuse, fakes a laugh as he lets her mock him for his sudden low tolerance. He knows she thinks he's picked up some woman, doesn't bother to correct her. He makes his way back up the stairs, making sure to keep his right hand on the wall so he doesn't do anything embarrassing like fall over. And then, right when he thinks he's finally got a good grip on gravity, he sees Hawke. She's curled up on the floor underneath the table, her chipped rose nails curled around his bottle of ale. Her lips are bright red and puffy and he can see a line of bruises forming along her collar bone.

"He said he loved me Varric." Her voice cracks on his name, she squeezes her eyes shut before taking another gulp of ale. "He...he said that he loved me, that none of it...none of it mattered....and then, then he just left. Left me in bed, mere moments after we had...Maker damn me for asking Varric but please just make me forget..."

"Hawke...." He crawls down underneath the table with her, pulls her robe back up onto her shoulder. She reaches for him, the buzz from the ale and the abandonment making her shaky.

 He pulls her close, breathes in the smell of her shampoo, the minty lemon that Leandra used to use, and he knows that Hawke uses it to remind herself of her mother. She hiccups, and he can feel the lone tear rolling down his chest. She pulls away only to take another gulp from the bottle, to wipe away the tear tracks. He pulls her closer, runs his hands slowly through her hair, detangles each knot slowly and surely. He pauses when he feels her hand reach up and grab his, watches as she pulls her face away from chest and looks down at him, her face a mix of drunk, abandonment and determination.

"Varric....I want to have a positive memory from this night." Her words aren't even the slightest bit slurred, and Varric knows that any buzz he had before has quickly wore off. "So, I know I shouldn't ask this of you but please....don't let him take this from me."

"Hawke -" Her mouth cuts him off, her tongue prying her way past his teeth, down his throat. She pushes him down onto the ground, squirms around on top of him, grind against his still clothed dick, mere inches between her back and the bottom of the table.

They don't bother to get fully undressed. She pulls his pants down quickly while he discovers that she's not wearing anything underneath her robe. She braces herself above him for a moment before she drops down on top of him. She clenches down before raising herself back up again. He shoots her a smirk before surprising her with a thrust upward, drawing a muffled scream from her lips. She pulls him impossibly close, wraps her arms around his head while she buries her face in his hair. She feels good, like she always does, but Varric can’t get over the abandonment that simply reeks from her. The bruises on her collar, down her chest. The still tangled hair. The slickness that drips from between her thighs.

All due to no work of his own.

He growls in response to that thought, a low and possessive sound that causes Hawke's eyes to widen before rolling back into her head. He tells himself to ignore it, that the slickness between her thighs that was there prior to their tumble under the table is now mixed with his own. It doesn't work. He pulls out of her, ignoring her unhappy groan in favor of pulling her legs up to bracket his head. He starts with her inner thighs, running his tongue along the crease between them and her hips, lapping up the slightly sweet juice that coats them. When he reaches her inner folds he pushes his face right between them, suckling on them individually before shoving his tongue deeper within her. He feels Hawke's hands grip his hair, tugging on it as her moans grow longer and desperate. He licks deeper and deeper within her, feels her tightening around his tongue. After what feels like eternity Varric pulls his face away, resettle her on his lap and starts thrusting, shallow, gentle rocking of his hips. He runs his hands along her shoulders, presses his lips to the bites on her neck. She lets out a shuddering gasp above him, presses her face even harder against his hair, breaths filthy words into his ear. He pretends he doesn’t hear her sobs.

 She’s gone in the morning. Unlike the previous times where she’s woken up in his bed, cheeks red, throwing his shit at him and generally just letting him know that everything’s okay, this time she’s gone. He doesn’t really have enough time to worry about Hawke and him and the sudden tightness in his chest at the idea of what they have ending because there’s a loud banging at his door. And Hawke, Avaline and Anders come tumbling in. The Qunari, it appears, are no longer willing to just stand by.

 

 

The first time Kirkwall burned, Hawke was burning a bit herself. Her eyes, once red and puffy from hours of crying where now steely and narrow. She marched into the Qunari compound with Avaline and when life tried to knock her out she sucker punched it first. For those five hours she truly was the Champion of Kirkwall – even if they had yet to bestow the title upon her. He remembers the way she flung herself at the Qunari, the lantern light reflecting off her hair in a reddish hue. She was fearless, even while the city burned around her. She tore a path to Hightown, the screams of the scared echoing through the alleyways like a harbinger of their arrival.

They approach Hightown slowly, the soft thud of their boots the only noise in the courtyard. It’s unsettling, how quickly the screams ended, how quickly they were silenced. Varric remembers that he moves forward first – impatience or curiosity he can’t quite remember now. What he does remember is how disturbingly peaceful the stars looked that night, the way they seemed to smile down on him. And then there’s a sudden rush of air and he’s looking at an angry Qunari standing right where he was mere moments before.

“Varric!” The Qunari goes flying backwards and Hawke is running over, panic written all over her face. “Are you okay?”

“Hawke! Behind you!” Aveline’s voice now, and for the second time that night someone goes flying through the air.

Varric doesn’t remember much of what happens next. He has scattered memories of Avaline running towards Hawke, Anders downing an unhealthy amount of lyrium potions in an attempt to get his mana back up to a semi-helpful range, and then, him. He remembers scrambling to his feet, reaching for Bianca and firing off a hail of arrows that landed nowhere near where he was aiming. He remembers the thick veil of panic that covers his eyes, makes his hands shake and his arrows miss. He remembers the way the Qunari grabbed Hawke’s braid, pulled her still dazed body up towards his blade.

And then Meredith arrived and…well, everyone knows what happened next. That part’s in the history books.

What’s not in the history books is the way Hawke collapses after the Keep is emptied out. The way she first laughs, a broken, manic thing that bubbles up out of her mouth despite the hand she slaps over her mouth. Varric is the only one who she is unable to shoo away – Avaline and Anders off to help the citizens of Lowtown and Darktwon respectively. At first he is unsure of what to do, he’s never been any good at comforting anyone, although Hawke does seem to be the exception to that rule. Then again, the night before, her leaving before he woke up, it all screams at him to back away quickly. The feeling in his chest that he is absolutely not thinking about is getting tighter and tighter, threatening to choke him.

“Varric.” Her voice breaks through his thoughts. “I –“

“I’m coming Chuckles.” And just like that, his decision was made for him.

It feels weird to cross the hall when it’s empty, and Varric feels like the windows are too large for just the two of them. He sits down on the step above the one she’s seated on, rests his hand on her horribly ripped shoulder pad. Hawke lets out a shaky breath, and her cracked lips quirk up into a pale imitation of a smile.

“What a night huh?” Her voice is still tinged with the relief driven hysteria that they are all feeling, though Varric doubts it will last long.

“Yeah, no shit." Varric squeezes her shoulder again, starts to rub soft circles between the harsh, unyielding armor and the thinner cloth layer. “Come on, it’s not good to linger among the dead.”

 “You’re right.” Hawke shakes her head, the small smile playing at the corner of her mouth again. “Let’s go to my place? I think I have bottle of…something Carver sent when he first became a Warden.”

  
“Sounds good with me.” He shrugs his shoulders, and admits to himself that he’d rather drink some fruity expensive shit with Hawke than drink alone any day.

It turns out that whatever Carver sent was definitely not some fruity shit. A few glasses in and the two of them are giggling like children, leaning against one another as they point out funny shapes in the burning fire.

 “Varric…Varric!” Hawke is now giggling uncontrollably, her face stained a pretty pink. “I want...you.”

 And there it was. The thing that neither of them really wanted to think about, let alone talk about. The fact that it was no longer just that Hawke was his best friend and the first human he found particularly attractive. It was that it was Hawke, the only human he found beautiful, the only woman since Bianca to get him so invested in anything or anyone.

 “Ah, Hawke….Broody will get his head screwed on straight again. No need to give up on him quite yet.” He deflects with a drunken smile, a hand on her knee.

“No, no, that’s not it.” She’s listing a bit to the right now, her head lolling back and revealing her bruised neck. “I…I don’t…I don’t think I want him anymore Varric. I don’t…I want….I want…”

She falls the rest of the way over, her face plopping onto the rug.

“Ah, Hawke….such a light way eh?” He laughs softly, tucking her hair back behind her ear. He gathers her up in his arms, a struggle yes, but not impossible, and places her in bed.

 Pulling the blankets up around Hawke he is suddenly hit by the desire to just lay there with her. To gather her up in his arms so that he knows nothing will hurt her and that no harm can possibly come to her without going through him first. He wants to never see her cry again, wants to hold her close when Leandra’s anniversary comes around. He wants….he just wants, he supposes. Wants to have her, and have her have him and for them to be as amazing together as they are now in 20 years, when they’re older and hopefully a tiny bit more wise.

 

* * *

 

“And…And I suppose that’s where it all fell apart.” Varric’s flopped down on top the rug sometime during the story, his hands covering his head. “I mean…not literally. I snuck out that morning before she woke and we just….carried on as normal, as you would say.”

 “Normal? So you all didn’t sleep toget – I am sorry Varric that is insensitive.” The Seeker catches herself, something so rare that it causes Varric to pop up and look at her, confused. “What? I can be sensitive dwarf!”

“I’m sure you can Seeker….” And suddenly, he’s laughing. Drunk guffaws that are tearing themselves from his throat, causing him to flop around on the rug. When he finally manages to stop laughing he pauses, considering Cassandra carefully. “We didn’t stop. Sleeping together that is. Shit happened, with Corypheus, with Kirkwall….with Fenris. But still, we were us. Just, with sex involved. But…I suppose the sex became a part of what made us…us.”

“And then?” Cassandra is seated cross legged on the carpet, the scars on her cheeks highlighted by the firelight.

“And then she left. Snuck off Isabella’s ship in the middle of night.” Varric pauses, thinks about that night, remembers how she came to him, how they slept together not once but twice. How desperate she was for it not to end. “I suppose she did try and say it…in her own way. She came to my room that night, not…not Fenris’ ”

“I think that says something…..” Cassandra trails off, running her hands down the rug. “I cannot say what but – oh Maker I am bad at this!”

“Ah, you aren’t half bad Seeker.” Varric smiles up at her, and for the first time since Adamant it feels like a genuine one. “You listened to me the whole night after all.”

“Well. I….I…I was wrong about you Varric.” It’s obvious that it is difficult for Cassandra to admit this, and her hands clench at her sides as she wills herself to continue. “I am honored that you consider me important enough to hear your story.”

“Oh Seeker….of course you’re important! You’re the narrator, the one that’s going put this all down for those who come after us to read and learn from.” Varric sighs, rolls over onto his feet. “Not to be rude but…I think I just need a few moments to myself.”

“Varric, you don’t need to leave.” Cassandra leans forward, tugs him back down onto the rug. “I will go into my room and you may remain here. I insist.”

The dwarf nodded once before settling himself on the couch, his head pillowed between two cushions. Cassandra lingers for a few moments before shaking herself, reminding herself that he is not a child that wants watching over. The room is silent as she makes her way to her door, and it’s not until her door is almost closed that she hears his voice. A low murmur so soft she probably wasn’t meant to have ever heard it.

“Well, if you insist Seeker….” A slightly sarcastic comment that floated its way from the couch to the bedroom.

It was just enough to give Cassandra hope that this war hadn’t taken everything from them. Not yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments always appreciated! :)


End file.
